Among the challenges facing agriculture are producing
food for our growing population and reducing agriculture’s footprint on
the environment. While we respect each individual’s right to express
their point of view on these topics, we believe we are making a
contribution to improving agriculture by helping farmers produce more
from their land while conserving natural resources such as water and
energy.

Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops,
an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a
switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing
world food crisis.

The study – carried out over the past three years at the University
of Kansas in the US grain belt – has found that GM soya produces about
10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent, contradicting
assertions by advocates of the technology that it increases yields.

Professor Barney Gordon, of the university’s department of agronomy,
said he started the research – reported in the journal Better Crops –
because many farmers who had changed over to the GM crop had “noticed
that yields are not as high as expected even under optimal conditions”.
He added: “People were asking the question ‘how come I don’t get as high
a yield as I used to?’”

***

The new study confirms earlier research at the University of Nebraska,
which found that another Monsanto GM soya produced 6 per cent less than
its closest conventional relative, and 11 per cent less than the best
non-GM soya available.

***

A similar situation seems to have happened with GM cotton in the US, where the total US crop declined even as GM technology took over.

***

Last week the biggest study of its kind ever conducted – the
International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for
Development – concluded that GM was not the answer to world hunger.

Professor Bob Watson, the director of the study and chief scientist
at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when asked if
GM could solve world hunger, said: “The simple answer is no.”

Proponents argue that GM crops can help feed the world.
And given ever increasing demands for food, animal feed, fiber and now
even biofuels, the world needs all the help it can get.
Unfortunately, it looks like GM corn and soybeans won’t help, after all.

For years the biotechnology industry has trumpeted that
it will feed the world, promising that its genetically engineered crops
will produce higher yields.

***

That promise has proven to be empty …. [A UCS report] reviewed two
dozen academic studies of corn and soybeans, the two primary genetically
engineered food and feed crops grown in the United States. Based on
those studies, the UCS report concludes that genetically engineering herbicide-tolerant soybeans and herbicide-tolerant corn has not increased yields.
Insect-resistant corn, meanwhile, has improved yields only marginally.
The increase in yields for both crops over the last 13 years, the report
finds, was largely due to traditional breeding or improvements in
agricultural practices.

***

The report does not discount the possibility of genetic engineering
eventually contributing to increase crop yields. It does, however,
suggest that it makes little sense to support genetic
engineering at the expense of technologies that have proven to
substantially increase yields, especially in many developing countries. In addition, recent studies have shown that organic
and similar farming methods that minimize the use of pesticides and
synthetic fertilizers can more than double crop yields at little cost to poor farmers in such developing regions as Sub-Saharan Africa.

The report recommends that the U.S. Department of Agriculture, state
agricultural agencies, and universities increase research and
development for proven approaches to boost crop yields. Those approaches
should include modern conventional plant breeding methods, sustainable
and organic farming, and other sophisticated farming practices that do
not require farmers to pay significant upfront costs. The report also
recommends that U.S. food aid organizations make these more promising
and affordable alternatives available to farmers in developing
countries.

“If we are going to make headway in combating hunger due to
overpopulation and climate change, we will need to increase crop
yields,” said Gurian-Sherman. “Traditional breeding outperforms genetic engineering hands down.”

Washington State University researcher Charles Benbrook has demonstrated that the net effect of GMOs in the United States has been an increase in use of toxic chemical inputs.

***

And in a new paper
(PDF) funded by the US Department of Agriculture, University of
Wisconsin researchers have essentially negated the “more food” argument
as well. The researchers looked at data from UW test plots that
compared crop yields from various varieties of hybrid corn, some
genetically modified and some not, between 1990 and 2010. While some GM
varieties delivered small yield gains, others did not. Several even
showed lower yields than non-GM counterparts. With the
exception of one commonly used trait—a Bt type designed to kill the
European corn borer—the authors conclude, “we were surprised not to find
strongly positive transgenic yield effects.” Both the
glyphosate-tolerant (Roundup Ready) and the Bt trait for corn rootworm caused yields to drop.

Then there’s the question of so-called “stacked-trait” crops—that is,
say, corn engineered to contain multiple added genes—for example,
Monsanto’s “Smart Stax” product, which contains both herbicide-tolerant
and pesticide-expressing genes. The authors detected what they call
“gene interaction” in these crops—genes inserted into them interact with
each other in ways that affect yield, often negatively. If multiple
genes added to a variety didn’t interact, “the [yield] effect of stacked
genes would be equal to the sum of the corresponding single gene
effects,” the authors write. Instead, the stacked-trait crops were all
over the map. “We found strong evidence of gene interactions among
transgenic traits when they are stacked,” they write. Most of those effects were negative—i.e., yield was reduced.

Overall, the report uncovers evidence of what is known as “yield drag”—the idea that manipulating the genome of a plant variety causes unintended changes in the way it grows, causing it to be less productive.

***

Here’s how the authors of a major paper published in Nature [one of the world's leading science jounrals] last year put it:

Soils managed with organic methods have shown better water-holding capacity and water infiltration rates and have produced higher yields than conventional systems under drought conditions and excessive rainfall.

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